In an email exchange with MTV, Star Trek Into Darkness writer-producer Damon Lindelof copped to the ham-fistedness of a scene in the film wherein a woman strips to a push-up bra (apparently they still exist in the future) and panties. As you can see in the unedited segment below, Lindelof’s tongue is planted firmly in cheek:

“Why is Alice Eve in her underwear, gratuitously and unnecessarily, without any real effort made as to why in God's name she would undress in that circumstance? Well, there's a very good answer for that. But I'm not telling you what it is. Because ... uh ... MYSTERY?”

Later, Lindelof struggled to qualify his glibness, and finally ended with a more sincere mea culpa on Twitter.

In defense of Lindelof, he did admit the strangeness of the scene in question to being with, and, to be honest to my readership, this story really is not that big of a deal. At least in comparison with the sexism that is still omni-present in Hollywood, a strip scene is just par for the course.

Hollywood loves to brand itself as progressive. The Lena Dunhams of the media world get so much girl power-themed attention that I cannot help but think somebody is compensating for something. If we lived in fully post-feminism society, there would need to be so much championing of women in Hollywood.

Maybe its guilt for the unrealistic female body image perpetuated in today’s media, or the lack of women directors, or the shockingly low number of films that pass the Bechdel test, but the controversies are too widespread to be outshined by a few female-centric TV shows and movies. Or, maybe it’s the indecent proposals of Hollywood; after one too many sex acts traded for a part, the producers who think with their brains rather than their genitals had had enough.

At any rate, Hollywood is trying too hard to fail at their goal of being less sexist. And besides, with standards knocked so low, its hard to imagine the culture going anywhere but up. It is bitter consolation, but consider this: Lindelof walked back a less then sincere apology for showing a girl in her underwear in a blockbuster film. Even now, a random scene of a woman in her skivvies is hardly offensive to any particular group, however, here is Damon Lindelof apologizing twice, because his first admission of guilt was not good enough. It may be slow improvement, but it is improvement nonetheless.